White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on April 15 called Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israeli territory on April 14 a `spectacular failure and
However, experts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), headquartered in Washington, USA, believe that Iran can learn from experience and take advantage of this failure to learn and plan more effective attacks.
`The raid campaign can help Iran relatively determine the strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air defense system,` ISW assessed.
Iran launched about 120 ballistic missiles, 30 cruise missiles and 170 UAVs at Israel in retaliation for the raid on the consulate in Syria in early April. Israel announced that it and its allies intercepted 99% of the targets.
Two US officials said five Iranian ballistic missiles penetrated Israel’s air defense network and hit the country’s territory, of which four fell on the Nevatim base, where F-35I stealth fighters are located.
Missiles launched from Israel’s Iron Dome complex responded to Iran’s attack on April 14.
According to experts Brian Carter and Frederick Kagan at ISW, although many Iranian missiles and UAVs were downed, the number of shells that could penetrate Israel’s air defense net was `enough to cause concern`.
During the attack, Iran launched a series of UAVs and cruise missiles first, to force the Israeli air defense system to continuously fire to intercept, and then launched ballistic missiles.
`The purpose of this coordinated attack is to use UAVs and cruise missiles with slower flight speeds to distract and overwhelm enemy air defense networks, allowing ballistic missiles that are harder to shoot down to reach the target.
According to them, Russia has implemented this tactic when conducting a series of attacks on Ukraine over the past year, often combining UAVs with cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles to overload Ukraine’s air defense network.
`Russia’s attacks on Ukraine demonstrate that just a small number of precision strikes on a key location in the energy network or other infrastructure is enough to cause a major impact,` experts warn.
They believe that Iran can draw new experiences on how to more effectively challenge Western air defense systems, thereby transferring this data to Russia to increase the effectiveness of its raid on Ukraine.
4 attacks by Iran and its allies aimed at Israel.
However, not everyone believes that Iran is `imitating` Russia’s tactic of raiding Ukraine.
In the raid on two Saudi Arabian oil refineries in 2019, Houthi forces in Yemen, supported by Iran, used UAVs combined with cruise missiles to attack the target.
Iran’s purpose in last week’s raid on Israel is still a subject of debate.
Rodger Shanahan, an expert at Australia’s Lowy Research Institute, said the strike was intended to `reestablish Iran’s deterrence capacity`.
Olivia